To Wondergirl, With Love
by Scarabbug
Summary: Cassie remembers Young Justice when she finds a letter, addressed to her, from an unexpected source. After all, since when had Impulse ever been patient enough to write? Spoilers for Flash FMA 13


**Spoilers** for much of the recent DC Comics continuity. Specifically for _Flash: Fastest Man Alive_ #13.

**Author's Note:** No doubt Titans related websites for the next few weeks will be (and already have been) pretty overflowing with this kind of fic. There's enough of Tim's perspective pout there right now to make me go all bleary-eyed. So I wanted to see some Cassie. I'm also kinda ignoring one _small_ retcon made since one year later... Standard disclaimers apply. Go have fun.

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To Wondergirl, With Love.

She remembers Young Justice.

There aren't many of them left now. Not alive and active, anyway. The ones that died are the ones who shouldn't have and – she hates herself for thinking it, but– the ones who lived should've been killed long ago, and probably would have been, if they hadn't been extremely lucky, or trained by Batman.

Impulse had been trained by Batman.

No. Not trained – that's completely the wrong choice of word. _Impulse _was the name that Batman gave him and that name was a warning about who he was and what he did. Impulse. Heroic. Instantaneous. No time for thought or planning or waiting. Poster child for the patience impaired. She remembers that too, and not believing it when she heard.

She wonders, this morning as she stares at the envelope, if this was the first thing Bart did for them, once he'd mastered the fine art of planning in advance.

Probably not. But still, he must have written it a long (subjective) time ago, because the writing still feels more like Impulse than either Kid Flash or the Flash or any of the people Bart turned into after the Crisis.

Actually, I think I can just call you Cassie here.

She knows it's Impulse now. There was no sock box in Kid Flash's room. There certainly isn't in The Flash's. She knows Tim's letter must be in here somewhere, but to Hades if she knows where to find it. Impulse…

…Bart was never tidy.

_Anyway, this is your list, not his. I spent a long time thinking what to put in it. Almost two whole subjective hours! See, that's something you've got to remember if you ever decide one day that maybe I didn't really care about you guys. Just think of my spending_ two subjective hours

She doesn't cry. She _doesn't_. Not yet. She's too tired of crying and it never brings them back, anyway.

_Okay, so anyway. Here's your list. And don't you dare laugh at it, because it's crummy. (Two hours, Cassie!_ AND

He was right about the smores. Cassie remembered how they tasted. Trained by batman in every art under the known sun, and yet Tim couldn't for the life of him toast marshmallows. And the funny thing was how much she'd believed him, tat time when he said he was perfectly normal.

Bart…

You idiot.

You very _smart_ idiot. Cassie never noticed that. But maybe Bart knew these things all along and just didn't pay them enough attention to really respond to them. She curls her fingers as tight as she dares around the envelope in her hands and tries not to think about the two of them laughing and fighting over the taste of sushi.

_5) Never breathe in around Poison Ivy. The Supervillian, I mean, not the stuff that grows in woods and makes you itch a lot. Seriously. You'll regret it, you really will.  
_  
She believes him.

She really does. Supergirl has told her stories about Poison Ivy (she wonders if Bart ever knew her real name was _Pamela_) which Wondergirl is really not sure about. She's spent a lot of time with Supergirl since Kon… well. They both miss him.

She doesn't know who's there to help her miss Bart because Tim…

Well. Tim's Tim. And Tim might have to deal on his own for a while. Later, she'll talk to him but… not right now. Now isn't a good time for any of them. Now Tim needs to stew, and ignore and battle his way through yet another death.

So for the moment, she has no one to help her remember Bart and all the races they never had.

_6) You know when the bad guys put you in those freaky holographic reality things. Well, never listen to them, okay? Never look at them and never believe what they're telling you and never let what they're telling you stop you from doing the right thing. Trust me. I GREW UP in a videogame, I know all about these things and I know how different real and fake things are. I'd give you a list of things to help you notice but that would be a little weird. Because then I'd be writing a list INSIDE a list and I already spent two hours on this so… I dunno. Go ask Tim. I'm pretty sure he'd be able to fix it if the bad guys ever stuck you in a videogame. They probably will. _

Cassie paused for a second when she read that.

…Was this from before, or after the first time they watched Bart… die? Before the war or after it? It has to be after it. It had to be because… she keeps seeing things in Bart's writing that she knows she wouldn't have seen earlier. Number six is a prime example. She curls up just a little tighter on the mess that used to be Bart's bed.

_7) (Man this list is getting really LONG…) Girls are weird. Don't say you're not, okay? Because you _are.

Okay, violence never solves anything, right? But you always looked like it made you feel better when Robin acted stupid, so do it anyway. Okay?

Okay, Cassie?

Okay, Bart.

She doesn't say it out loud, but she says it in her head. And really, she's been doing something similar for Kon ever since _he_ died in the crisis. The extra punches she threw were for him. And now she'll have to throw some extra. Especially if she's fighting Gorilla Grodd or Captain Cold or somebody Bart used to know if she ever finds herself in Keystone. It's important they know that the Flash is still there.

He's still there inside of _her._

I hope you don't really mind that last one. It doesn't matter anyway because you're never gonna read it. I'd have to be dead before you could do that, and I'm gonna hide this letter in a secret place.

I'll see you there tonight, WG.

Love Signed.  
Bartholomew Henry Allen.  
AKA: Impulse.

And then there's just nothing. That was it. Cassie has a somewhat amusing thought – because it seems the last thing Bart ever says to her is a round-about comment on how cute she is and how much guys that diss her deserve to be punched. She remembers the boys sticking up for her once, before they realized she didn't really need it, and the way she only ever didn't care if it was Kon who tried to help…

And then the door opens.

The handle vibrates a little before it does, like someone is trying to force their way in, in a way that only a speedster can. One of Cassie's hands reaches instinctively for the lasso she doesn't need to use.

Bart.

It's _Bart._

Or at least, it _looks_ like him, and for just a moment she's sure it is. Her hands clench tight on the lasso and the letter. And that's really the _silliest_ thing, because Bart's dead. Everyone knows he's dead and has been for _days_, and yet now he's stood there right in front of her and she's been nosing about in his room and she's worried about _that_ instead of him and…

'…Wondergirl?'

…And then her brain catches up with the rest of her. It all stops. She blinks and looks at the Flash again and she sees an uncharacteristic jaw line. A pair of tired, green eyes.

Green. Not gold or glittering. Not Bart. Cassie's heart returned from her throat to her stomach. This was just _the Flash._

'…Cassie, um, Hi. Didn't expect you to be here.'

Of course he didn't. Cassie's eyes tilt uneasily in the direction of the window she _carefully_ used to gain access to the room. Pretty much nobody knows she's here. 'Well it's… no problem, you know. Actually I'm glad you're here.'

She already knows that -she saw the relief in his expression when he opened the door.

'…Wally.'

'Yeah, me. We were wondering where you'd gotten to, most people out there say they haven't seen you in order two days and some girl named Greta's been calling the tower, and…'

Cassie smiles. Because some things never change. 'And a Cissie, right?'

'Yeah. Her too. You've also got going on fifty messages waiting on your answering machine.'

Enough people care about her to make that kind of fuss. Cassie won't pretend she's not the slightest bit surprised.

'Is Donna okay?' she asks, mostly as a means of breaking his current train of thought. He doesn't comment, just bites his lip for a second (a long time for a speedster, she imagines) and nods. 'Yeah, the old team we… we've talked a lot. I spoke to Donna earlier. She's really worried about you, wants to see you as soon as possible.'

'I'll go see her later, I'll go see all of them.' It's not a promise, but Cassie knows she probably will. She…

She misses Donna _so much_ right now and she really doesn't want her to worry. Did Wally miss her too, wherever he was before…

Before Bart died to bring him back? Because that was what had happened, wasn't it? Bart died. Tim told her all about it.

There could only ever be one Flash.

'Someone had to come round and help clear out this place. And Jay'll be coming around. It's alright if you wanna stay a while.'

Cassie shakes her head. She'll be gone, by then. Wally's eyes flicker briefly over to the window with the broken lock on the handle. 'You could've come round and asked for a key, I'm pretty sure… well, you're welcome here, Wondergirl. You know that, right?'

She nods at him. She knows that. 'Good I… good. Sure. You okay?'

It's a silly question and both of them know it. But at times like this, there's no such thing as a sensible one. A blink later, Wally's sitting on the bed a few feet away from her, with the box in which she found the letter open in his hand. 'There's… he said there were more letters for everyone,' Cassie says, mostly because the silence is deafening and she really needs something to _say._ 'But there aren't any in there and…' she holds up the letter. '…This one looked kind of a mess, all folded up. I don't think he ever wanted to send it. The other letters are probably long gone.'

'The old team, right?' Wally asks. 'I'll keep a look out. We'll be clearing this place out and… yeah, I'll keep a look out for you, let you know if I find anything.'

'Thanks.' She's sure Bart wouldn't have thrown the other letters away. If he didn't throw hers away there'd be know way he's throw out Robin's, or Kon's. She'll even go down to the harbour later just to make sure there's nothing there.

Wally is looking at the opposite wall. She can see the differences, now that she looks at him. Bart's head didn't fit under the cowl quite the same, and the lightning bolt guards of the ears were different – On Bart they had been less purely aesthetic, what with the speed force being a killer and all.

And then he pulls the cowl down and Cassie catches sight of his profile. That makes her _shiver_, if only for a second, because, despite the eyes, it's easy to forget. When Bart died…

…He looked so much like Wally. And every bit the Flash.

Then Wally looks directly at her and the spell is broken. Their profiles were alike, but their faces aren't. Cassie wonders, sometimes, if Wally sees Donna in her. In her clothes and persona and who she is.

She wonders if Wally and Donna ever raced.

'Wally?' her voice is quieter than she meant it to be. 'Can you do something for me?'

'What? Oh, yeah. Sure,' and he almost but doesn't quite add an "anything" on the end of that sentence. After all, she's Wondergirl.

'Will you tell me about him? Bart. How you met him I mean.'

It's really strange to see a Flash hesitate, because they never…they're not _like_ that at all. They never pause, they never wait, they never stop to let their faces be seen as tired or old.

Or maybe she's just thinking of Bart.

The Flash gives her another smile and this one is laced with so many things Cassie knows he can't work out where to begin what's probably going to be a long conversation. '…How long do you have?' he asks.

Her eyes are damp and… She knows that Wally understands that. She knows somehow that he understands a lot.

After all, the Flash knows all about Wondergirl. '…A long time.'

Wally leans back against the wall, hands behind his head and Cassie curls up against the pillow with the letter folded in one hand, waiting for the story.

'Okay… Bart Allen… where do I start this one? I mean, you ever get the feeling that someone you love is doing something specifically to punish you?'

_Fin. _

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Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **


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